The Acapulco Naval Museum will donate a facsimile replica of the Nuttall Codex to the General Villa de Tututepec Elementary School in the state of Oaxaca. Six years ago, a group of Oaxacan students who traveled to the port of Acapulco recognized symbols and drawings referencing their town among the objects on display. On Thursday morning, the activities commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Acapulco Naval Museum were presented, which will continue throughout 2025.
At a press conference, the museum’s director, Marcelo Adano Bernasconi, recalled that “in 2019, a group from the Tututepec elementary school came, and surprisingly, children between the ages of 10 and 12 suddenly stopped in front of the two pages we have on display from the Nuttall Codex, which narrates the journey of Lord Eight Deer Jaguar Claw, chieftain of the Tututepec lordship in the 11th century, from Tututepec, the oldest community in Oaxaca, to Laguna de Términos.”
The pre-Hispanic manuscript, the original of which is in the British Museum in London, survived the conquest and represents a genealogy of the life of the Mixtec or Na Savi people.
Adano Bernasconi emphasized that “what was wonderful, what amazed us, was that the children, when they saw the pages of the codex, said, ‘Look, it’s from our town. They were reading it, they recognized it. We unfolded the codex, and they began to look at it, talking to each other, which demonstrates the power of our history, which children still recognize today.”
Adano Bernasconi explained that the replica is 13 meters long and will be displayed in a kind of community museum at the General Villa de Tututepec educational institution.
The dedication will take place on April 12th.
He emphasized that among the museum’s priority objectives, in addition to research, is to strengthen the identity of Acapulco residents and all Mexicans by disseminating the maritime history of Acapulco and the Pacific Ocean.
Among the activities planned for this year is the launch of a radio program, titled “La mirada del Pacífico” (The Pacific View), hosted by Alfonso Albonza, the museum’s research and projects manager. The program aims to disseminate historical events about Acapulco and its social, economic, and cultural relationship with the Pacific Ocean.
Adano Bernasconi emphasized that the Naval Museum is not a private facility, but rather operates through a civil association, with the intention of ensuring the gallery’s continuity and keeping it open to the public.
Likewise, on June 17, 2025, the project will be presented featuring the model of Mexico’s first warship, which entered Acapulco Bay on June 17, 1825. The replica could not be completed due to the passage of Hurricane Otis on October 25, 2023. However, the graphical part of the research will be presented.
Also planned are presentations on research and the importance of the cultural legacy of the Acapulco-Manila trade route, which spanned 250 years.
Source: jornada
